How Hulu’s ‘Hotwives’ Cured My ‘Real Housewives’ Obsession

I like to think I have pretty good taste in television. When it comes to music, I’m always at least two years too late to the party. Movies? It feels like as soon as I see the latest critical darling, I’m already five indie films behind. But TV is where I shine. That being said, for a large amount of my television career, I was afflicted with a binging disease that has taken hold of most of the American population.

Hi, my name is Kayla, and I used to be a Real Housewives fan.

The Real Housewives is one of those franchises that doesn’t produce shrugs or laughs from your guilt-watching confidants. Much like the Kardashian empire, this admission inspires eye rolls, groans, and a slew of scathing articles. Even though I knew its place in the television hierarchy of quality, I didn’t care. I told myself it was just something silly I enjoyed watching with my mom, but deep down, I knew my love was more than that.

There’s something about watching clueless and often petty people with seemingly endless amounts of money that’s alluring at a very human level. It fits into the narrative that we’re been fed our entire lives and that Charles Dickens thrives on: Wealth equals meanness. It also seems to add order to the world. Sure these people may never have to worry about their next paycheck or working, but they’re dramatic and trashy enough to flip a table at a restaurant. We’re better, right?

So when Hulu announced The Hotwives of Orlando, I was fully on board. It spoofed a show I loved, a city I knew well, AND it starred quirky genius Kristen Schaal. I expected to laugh, which I did, but ultimately, I thought this show would deepen my Real Housewives love. How wrong I was.

The Hotwives destroyed my love of all things housewives and real. There have been several reality TV spoofs over the years, and a few have specifically targeted Bravo’s nine-year franchise. Specifically, Lifetime’s delightful and juicy UnReal serves as the latest iteration of the reality-TV-inspired scripted comedy, but it’s impossible to talk about Real Housewives spoofs without mentioning Kevin Hart’s Real Husbands of Hollywood and 30 Rock’s fake show, “Queen of Jordan.” However, these didn’t hit me as hard as the Orlando hotwives did.

The Hotwives of Orlando follows six wives as they prance from dog heel charities to hair-pulling throw downs, but whereas other Housewives parodies spend more time mocking the idea of the show, each of the hot wives have an unofficial Bravo dopplegänger. There’s Tawny, the gold-digging trophy wife (played by Casey Wilson, former SNL cast member and Happy Endings star, and modeled after RHOC‘s Gretchen Rossi); Shauna, the Jersey-bred over-spender (co-creator Danielle Schneider, modeled after RHONJ‘s resident jailbird Teresa Guidice); the entrepreneurial catchphrase machine that is Phe Phe (Drunk History’s Tymberlee Hill, who embodies basically everyone on RHOA); Veronica, the sex-obsessed cougar (Andrea Savage, based on RHOBH‘s Lisa Vanderpump); Crystal, the good Christian wife who is as devout as she is repressed (Angela Kinsey from The Office fame, a stand-in for Alexis Bellino of RHOC); and Amanda, the drug-addled former child star, rounds out the sixth wife (comedienne Kristen Schaal, known from Bob’s Burgers, who takes after RHOBH‘s troubled Kim Richards).

Though the show’s on-the-nose portrayals of the Real Housewives has been described by some critics as “lazy”, for me, these transparent portrayals and plot adds a whole other layer of parody. The Hotwives of Orlando doesn’t just criticize a specific show. It ruthlessly mocks an entire sub-genre reality television. By making its characters and plot points so dead on, Hulu’s original show shines a flashlight on exactly what mainstream viewers are consuming, and the resulting image is hard to look at.

The world of the Hotwives is one rooted in deep-seated sexism, where women are allowed to speak, spend, and love if and only through their husbands’ approval. Hell, the concept of women’s “assigned” places is nodded to in the show’s very title.

The series’ cringe-worthy take on marriage is portrayed best by Crystal’s ultra-conservative and ultra-controlling husband, who believes that women can’t interpret the Bible the way men can, and Tawny’s dismissive partner, whose verbal abuse is seen by Tawny as an expression of love. Sure, the predominantly single Veronica, Phe Phe, and Amanda counter this trope, but only because they aren’t married (most of the time). They’re still defined by their sexuality.

However, the most glaring flaw the Orlando wives exposed was the overwhelming number of “girl-on-girl crimes” in the Real Housewives franchise (terminology thanks to Tina Fey). Before watching the Hotwives, I wasn’t clueless about the overwhelmingly amount of frenemies on the Bravo series, but the drama was spaced out just enough for the Real Housewives’ relationships to seem funny instead of toxic. Fights and slights (real and imagined) are interlaced with moments bragging about the wife of the moment’s wealth and making fun each lead’s intelligence. However, Hotwives cut out the fat and give viewers exactly what they want to see: Rich women having ridiculous fights.

As a result, this parody shows just how little these characters care about one another, while revealing how toxic our relationship as viewers is with the Real Housewives. Just like Tawny and Shauna, we are frenemies with Bravo’s shows, happy to tune in and watch but even happier to mock it as soon as a commercial break leads to the proverbial turning of the show’s back.

For me, The Hotwives doesn’t just read as a parody of the franchise. It’s a parody of our relationship with reality shows we love to hate. Through its on-the-nose portrayal of the franchise, Hotwives reminds us that, while we’ve been spending time watching TV we hate, we could be watching better written and funnier entertainment we actually love to love. It reminds us that our TV diet can be funnier and more socially aware.

Now when I see a Real Housewives marathon, I change the channel. Do I miss my guilt-watching marathons? At times, yes, but every time I’ve tried to re-watch, I’m reminded of how well the Hotwives nailed the format, from the multiple (painful) singing attempts to the one non-housewife who always “helps” by creating drama. But the Hotwives also added a level of absurdist comedy that I enjoy more than even the juiciest Real Housewives fight.

Hotwives of Orlando, I thank you for breaking me of my bad housewives habit. Ultimately, it has made me a better viewer, but can you give me a warning next time?

For the show’s second season, which premieres on Hulu today, the Hotwives franchise moves to Las Vegas! Some faces will be familiar, but they’re embodying brand new characters this around (save for Phe Phe, the sole returning Hotwife). Can these new ladies handle Sin City? Probably not.